“AMA’s Approach to Impairment Rating Evaluations is Unconstitutional”—an article written by Samuel H. Pond and Andrew F. Ruder of Pond Lehocky Stern Giordano, published in The Legal Intelligencer on April 23, 2013. The title speaks for itself, but contained therein was an explanation that while the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act (act) does not place limitations on the length of time an injured worker can receive ongoing wage loss benefits, it did establish an impairment rating system for individuals who had been receiving total disability benefits for a period of two years.

Specifically, Section 306(a.2)(1) of the act provided that when a claimant received total disability benefits for a period  of 104 weeks, they were required, if requested by the employer, to submit to an Independent Rating Evaluation (IRE). If the claimant’s impairment rating was less than 50 percent, his/her benefit status would be reduced from total to partial disability, capping wage loss benefits to 500 weeks. In making these impairment rating determinations, the act required physicians to follow the most recent guidelines as developed by the American Medical Association (AMA). In the aforementioned April 2013 article, the authors argued that since the AMA is a private organization with absolutely no connection to the Pennsylvania Legislature, the use of its guidelines was an impermissible delegation of the legislature’s exclusive law-making power under the Pennsylvania Constitution.